Will you come with me as we venture along the path through Priesthood? It is a shared journey since God has deigned we be here together, and that must be for a reason...
Here's a couple of things for you to think about and to share with others.
First, a video I happened across from Catholics Come Home. You can visit their website here. It's very easy, it seems to me, to drift from the Church and yet it is very hard to come back. To come home. One tip, which I think works most effectively, is through personal invitation.
Secondly, the launch of the official website of World Youth Day, which you can visit here. Soon to be translated into English, too. We are hoping to get a good crowd of young people from the parish to WYD Madrid. Please pray for them as they begin their preparations and fundraising.
There is nothing better, in my humble opinion, than a good healthy competition to get your blood pumping (especially when I'm on the winning team) and there is a HUGE clash of the titans brewing up as we speak.
The football giants of Oscott College have challenged the Dominicans to a game of footie at the end of this month. You can read more about it on theeastangliaseminarians blog, here, and over on the Godzdogz, here.
I'm not sure of the footballing talent of the chaps at Blackfriars, but I'm impressed with their video of their seemingly full-on training schedule.
Having just listened to the Oscottseminarians brand new CD, let's just hope their football is half as good as their singing and then I know they'll hammer those dastardly Dominicans.
Mark it up in your diary, pray for Oscott and prepare to cheer on the winners!
Every now and again something comes along to tickle your day, and this is it for this Monday! I subscribe to the blog LOL Saints, and you do get a good laugh from it. Why don't you go and have a look at some of their hilarious back catalogue? You wont be disappointed.
“As for that day or hour, nobody knows it.”Jesus is talking, today, about the end times.As we move toward the end of the Church’s liturgical year we think especially of those who have died.November is the month for praying for the Holy Souls.Jesus could, just as easily, have been talking about our own death, the end of our life on earth, and it is death which I would like to talk about this morning.Three aspects of death to be precise: euthanasia or assisted suicide and having your say, planning our own Funeral Mass and the launch of the Bereavement Group within the parish.
A central theme of our readings is the end times; they are ‘apocalyptic’ in nature.Whilst we are confident of the Resurrection, and we hope to enjoy the beatific vision in due course, we do not pray for life here on earth to be hastened to a swift end.Whilst I was at seminary and recently returned to the Faith, I would often pray for Pope John Paul II as his health began to fail him.I was heard to say we must pray to St Joseph for a ‘quick end’.Through the kind intervention of a good friend, he corrected me that we pray to St Joseph not for a ‘quick end’ but rather a happy death.There is a world of difference.
Even my terminology of a ‘quick end’ seeks to deny it is death of which I talk.Often language is used to soften the harsh reality, like when we talk of assisted suicide as an act of mercy.How can it ever be merciful to take a life?Such a notion is at odds with our understanding of the value of life.It is precisely because we value all life that we stand shoulder to shoulder with those who suffer, and most especially with those who are suffering to such an extent that they are considering killing themselves.Our hope in the Risen Lord, He who has “offered one single sacrifice”, compels us to walk along the path of darkness, the path of the suicidal, but it does not lead us to ‘assist’ them.It is our duty, in protecting the vulnerable, to cry out against those who, wrongly, consider assisted suicide to be acceptable.
Our Bishops encourage us to speak out on this issue and to contact the Director of Public Prosecution.A briefing paper is available at the back of Church.Make your voice heard.It is important we act now.I will be writing to Geoffrey Robinson, our MP, and I hope you will join me in ensuring those who are vulnerable are protected.
Thank God for the wonder of our Faith which enables us to face the challenge of death and to know that He has overcome the power of hell.It is not wrong to consider and make plans for our own Funeral Mass.It is not morbid to do this, but rather an act of charity, which will greatly aid those who love us to make the necessary arrangements when the time comes.Anyone who has been involved in planning a funeral knows just how valuable it is to know the express wishes of their relative or friend.To this end, we also have at the back of Church a form which you may find helpful in considering and recording your plans.Talk to those whom you love, let them know your wishes and record your thoughts.
Finally, I want to talk about that time after death, and talk especially to those who have felt the pain of grief.Shakespeare said “My grief lies all within, and these external manners of lament are merely shadows to the unseen grief that swells with silence in the tortured soul.”There is nothing, it seems, that can be said or done to help those who grieve.We are, nonetheless, a community of lovers and, to this end; we are beginning a Bereavement Group during Advent who will, especially, walk that lonely path of sorrow.There is a Turkish proverb which goes “he that conceals his grief finds no remedy for it.”The Bereavement Group will be, for our parish, one part of the remedy we seek.
We can, and we do, talk of death.Death has no hold over us and we are learned in its ways.The light of Christ shines out as a beacon for us, and we, in turn, hope to be the learned that “will shine as brightly as the vault of heaven.”
Athanasius, over on Suffering World, has a very interesting post on the subject "Symbols: contrasting stories of a secular tyranny" which you can read here. The basic premise is a contrast between our approach to the wearing of the poppy and that of the cross in the public arena (think football teams with poppies embroidered onto strips and Italians banning the crucifix in the schoolroom) and the ramifications for society as a whole. If you have a few minutes to spare, go read and comment.
Yesterday, at the morning Mass, I preached to the children about Pope St Leo the Great. A fascinating character. There is little I want to say, here, about Pope Leo but I do encourage you to find out more about him. You can do this, here, on wiki (it's just so universal even if 'banned' at Oscott), or you may prefer to read a great little book called The 33 Doctors of the Church by Tan Publishing (which I got for an absolute bargain in Dublin) or, indeed, you may prefer to delve into Butler's or the like. To help the children understand the man, I talked about three aspects of his life which would lead history to call him 'Great'; an honour bestowed upon only one other Pope. What, I wonder, did I say...
This evening we had the great honour, in our parish, of hosting the deanery Vocations Mass. I was particularly struck by someone who said, after the Mass, just how uplifting the experience of being present had been. It is easy, from time to time, to forget just how awesome the experience of Mass can be. The coming together of both the pilgrim Church on earth and the eternal Church of heaven. When were you last aware of that yourself?
It was, indeed, a most uplifting Mass. There were many who had been involved in the preparation of the liturgy, including a rather fetching chasuble designed, and I think made, by Cardinal Newman secondary school. Fr Paul Moss, our diocesan Vocations Director, preached very well and encouraged those present to consider a calling to the priesthood or to the consecrated religious life. All too often, I think, we forget that God uses our voices to talk. The next time you are thinking, "should I suggest priesthood to such and such" don't think about it, do it.
So, thank you to everyone present at Mass, and for those who continue to hold vocations in your prayers. May God bless you all the days of your life.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.These words, taken from the poem For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon, help us, today, to remember those who have died as a result of warfare.Traditionally the two World Wars, but increasingly we remember those brave soldiers who have fallen in recent years; in the Falklands, Iraq, and Afghanistan:Men, and women, who are known to us, who come from us and have fought for us.As the opening verse of our poem puts it
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
It is fitting that we pray for them during this month of the Holy Souls.We pray also for those left behind, especially for the orphans and the widows.
Two widows are presented to us in our readings and they have a clear meaning for us.In the male-dominated society of New Testament Palestine, the widow would symbolise all who have no voice, no means and no power. From these people all is taken from them.In the Gospel it is the scribes “who swallow the property of widows” and in the book of Kings, it is Elijah who is taking the last food of the widow and her son.Yet each is quite different.
Elijah asks and the widow gives.He knows that through God’s blessing she will have plenty as a result of her kindness and generosity.Today we would say she lives the Christian values.Whilst we don’t have the end of the story, we are later told her jar of meal, or flour, will last for a whole year.The scribes, on the other hand, are robbing those who hold them in such high esteem; an invaluable lesson for any priest who asks the people of his parish to be generous in their own offerings.No priest should be prancing around in his best clobber just to gain recognition and status or taking the places of honour in church or at the banquet.Well, not unless he wants to endure a severe sentence.
Nonetheless, it is right and proper that priests are held in high regard, as I know that you all do, because they bring Christ amongst their people.They come in the person of Christ as head of his Church.What the priest, therefore, asks of us is as though it were Christ himself asking.It is for this reason that the widow in the Gospel willingly gives all she has.She knows that in being asked to give more, to give everything, she is being asked by God to give of herself for His kingdom and she willingly pays.Jesus, who is watching the scene carefully, sees that the rich who give only what they have to spare, keeping the rest for themselves, in effect make no sacrifice.Most certainly giving up an extra holiday, or a flash car or a bigger house is as nothing compared to giving the food from your table or, like those grieving for our brave soldiers, giving up a son, or a daughter, a father or a mother, a husband or a wife.They are the people who are living the Christian values.They know, first hand, what it is to feel the pain of sacrifice.
Any sacrifice, for the furtherance of the kingdom of God, is to be honoured and those who ask for the sacrifice had best be sure it is for the right cause.Any politician who sends the armed forces into war must ensure, amongst other criteria, the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.Rowan Williams said last month, when talking of the War in Iraq: “In a world as complicated as ours has become, it would be a very rash person who would feel able to say without hesitation, this was absolutely the right or the wrong thing to do, the right or the wrong place to be.”
As we that are left grow old, let our remembrance be for a reason.Let it remind us of the pain of war and, most especially, let it remind us that only in God can peace be brought about.
I was heartened to read, today, of the Vocation Directors meeting in Rome last week. It is reported: In a speech to the English and Welsh Vocations Directors' Conference held at the Palazzola near Rome, Mgr Francis Bonnici, Director of the Pontifical Pastoral Ministry for Priestly Vocations, said England and Wales were among those countries that is seeing an increase in priestly vocations. Provisional statistics indicate that the number of men commencing seminary formation in September 2009 for the dioceses of England and Wales was in the forties (these statistics will be published in the Spring of 2010).
Great news which gives cheer to our hearts!
Let me also plug a Vocations Mass at Christ the King in Coventry this coming Monday at 7pm. All are very welcome. You can find out more here.
Now, if you've pressed on the 'here' link you will have been taken to the Birmingham Vocations website and it may be you didn't find details about the forthcoming Mass. Well that is okay as you have the details on this blog, but perhaps, like me, you stumbled across this wonderfully uplifting story about jubilarians to the priesthood. Between 175 priests they have clocked up almost 8,000 years of ministry! What an amazing feat. I also see that they are currently out in Rome and I hope they're having a jolly uplifting and well deserved break. It's almost impossible to count the number of people's lives they have enriched just through their priestly ministry.
